


Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Letummordre



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Heed the character death tag, Hux Has No Chill, Kylo Ren induced angst, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Post-Battle of Starkiller Base, Starkiller deserved better, The Grey inspired AU, gratuitous use of poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-24 08:00:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7500402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Letummordre/pseuds/Letummordre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Don’t be afraid.</i> Ren had whispered into his ear. <i>I feel it too. We all do, when it comes.</i><br/>“I’m not afraid.” He’d told Ren, elbowing him in the ribs. “Go back to sleep, fool.”<br/>It was useless to dwell on the past, when all it brought was that unwanted ache deep between his ribs. Ren had left him, and would never return. Not to him, and certainly not to the First Order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Gold Can Stay

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing Gold Can Stay is Robert Frost's  
> The Grey inspired this. Dark, cold and dreary. I should be sorry but I'm not.  
> Suffer with me.  
> And please do heed the death and violence tags.

I.

 

> _Nature’s first green is gold,_ _  
> _ _Her hardest hue to hold._

The snow lashed at him harshly, burning like whips cascading across his skin. Another frozen planet, another desperate attempt to find a new base after the destruction of the last one.

The general was no fool; the Resistance had already driven the killing blow in deep. They’d lost so much so quickly, and their biggest assets lay to waste.

He remembered how he’d once viciously enjoyed the cold, the way the thick flakes obscured everything from vision, made the sky heavy with grey stretching across all horizons. It was power he thought, to harness the cold. Snow was always so fondly associated with death.

And yet everything he’d worked for, everything he’d loved was lost. It was hard to find enjoyment in anything when he’d once believed that he could rule everything, and now his chances of obtaining it had slimmed dramatically. Maybe he understood how it had felt now, when all of the New Republic had lost everything they’d ever built.

He didn’t regret it, didn’t even feel remorse for it, but he could hold a new appreciation for what he had done. What he had taken away. Everyone had lost, now. It was what war was, in essence.

_Don’t be afraid._

The words were accompanied with no breath of air, and a faint echo of the words actually said. _The problem with memories_ , he thought, _is that they feel so real for that split second of remembrance_. It wasn’t real. It would never be real again.

“I’m not.” He said, out loud because it was what he always had responded with and it felt wrong to leave it hanging and repeating in memory. No one answered. Foolishly, he looked over his shoulder at the presence that should have been there, lurking, but all that stood behind him was rock and ice.

“So dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay.” He mumbled, staring out over the landscape.

It was something Ren had said once to him, nursing a glass of whiskey and staring out the viewport. It was the only poem he would quote verbatim, over time. The other poems he’d whispered snippets from were all different, all varying in theme and genre. That one was the one, for whatever reason, that had stuck with Ren. That one was the one he could hear most clearly in Ren’s voice.

Everything in front of him was grey and white, stretched wide across the horizon. Nothing gold would likely ever cross his sight again.

 

II.

 

> _Her early leaf’s a flower;_ _  
> _ _But only so an hour._

Even within heated walls of the Finalizer, all he could think about was ice. Some place, far away, his entire life had changed because of it—thick bluish white unending ice, freshly fallen snow and so much _red_ — but his body had moved on without him.

He was present, in a sense. He didn’t know if he even really wanted to be, anymore.

“Finding the girl is still important,” the Supreme Leader had said with his ghastly face shadowed half in darkness, “maybe more critical than ever before.”

He didn’t know what he’d do when he saw her again, wanted to say that he wasn’t the person for this. He had never had an interest in her, wretched little scavenger that she was. He couldn’t deny that she was powerful, but it didn’t mean that he wanted to ever see her face.

“As you wish,” he said, anyway.

He hoped that all that she loved burned to the ground, long before she ever reached him. He wanted to be the one to take it from her. She would hunt him, and he would take her down like the animal she was. Maybe he did understand some of Ren’s madness after all.

 _This is mine,_ Ren said once; _all of this is my choosing._

“What is?” He’d responded, sleep still clinging to him. It was heavy, weighted in his chest with slow rhythmic breathing.

_This life, this death, this moment. All of it is one, in the end._

The dim light of his holopad behind Ren had cast a glow, haloing his head and body in an ethereal light. The shadows had obscured Ren’s face, but he could still remember it for the most part. Even that would eventually fade away.  

“It’s too early for your dramatic nonsense.” He’d told Ren, and rolled away from him.  

 _Don’t be afraid._ Ren had whispered into his ear. _I feel it too. We all do, when it comes._

“I’m not afraid.” He’d told Ren, elbowing him in the ribs. “Go back to sleep, fool.”

It was useless to dwell on the past, when all it brought was that unwanted ache deep between his ribs. Ren had left him, and would never return. Not to him, and certainly not to the First Order.

All of his Knights had returned and left by now, all of them under a new leader that would bring them all down just like Ren probably would have, eventually.  

“Are you going to kill her?” Lieutenant Mitaka asked quietly, glancing over at him from across the map lay wide open before them.

“Not yet.” He responded, watching the dot moving slowly across the map. The only smart thing Ren had done before the base had been destroyed. Before—no. She was now theirs for the taking. He would be able to track her anywhere.

 _Nothing_ would be able to stop him.

 

III.

 

> _Then leaf subsides to leaf._ _  
> _ _So Eden sank to grief,_

Her footsteps are swift, and she carries herself with more confidence than she had when she'd fought Ren on Starkiller base. Her eyes are more wild, fierce, like his.

Hux used to think he was more animal than man, when he’d first met Ren. That perception had changed without him even realizing it, and he only realizes it now when it made absolutely no difference to anything in his life.  
He waits, but no angry retort comes for his comparisons. It's silent in his head, like it has been since-- no. Like it hasn't been since Ren and he met, so many years ago.  
He's forgotten what it means to be alone in his own mind. Pathetic.  
He's already forgotten what Ren's laugh sounds like, but he's not coming back and Hux won't be able to memorize it again. Ren had left them all, and it was too late.  
His fingertips brush over a letter, worn and wrinkled in his inner pocket of his greatcoat as he watches her come closer. Coming for him, coming for them all.

  
"Ren,

It is no fight without you, for I feel like I have already lost. You probably have waited so long to hear that, and now you aren’t even at my side for me to say it to your face.

Where have you gone? You’d be pleased to know I think of you all the time. You’d probably gloat and make stupidly sentimental remarks about it. However, you are gone and I am alone as I write this.

Do you know how long it took me to find this paper, this pen, just so I could write these words? Why do this, when there is nowhere I can send this? Explain this to me, Ren. You were always the one who knew so much of emotion.

Until next we meet,  
-H"

  
He holds the paper close to his heart, as if it's beating can send it out somewhere where Ren can reach it. As if the letter’s words can transcend physics, as if the ache in his chest can give it the power it needs to find Ren anywhere, everywhere.

He lifts his rifle and aims for the scavenger, trained directly on her heart. He’d take hers for taking his away far from reach, for ruining the only good thing he’d managed to cobble together with the scraps his father had left of him.

_Don’t be afraid._

He pressed his finger to the trigger, smiling to himself as he pressed once quickly and watched her fall. Red stained the snow, her eyes wide and searching as she scrabbled for purchase.

It was too much like---

 

IV.

 

> _So dawn goes down to day._ _  
> _ _Nothing gold can stay._

\---Ren, breath coming in shallow pants as he lay already half frozen into the snow. Blood arced away from him, dark and thick in the snow. Already clotted.

“Kriff,” Hux hissed, ripping his greatcoat from his shoulders and tucking it in around Ren. “Ren, can you hear me?”

The tiny clouds of warm air from Ren’s lips are his only indication that the man is still even alive. The deep slash across Ren’s face, half cauterized and half open from the frigid air, still drips sluggishly down his cheek and nose.

“Ren.” Hux hisses, leaning close to him. He slips his hand under Ren-- he’s far too pliant, far too relaxed-- trying to grip and hold so he can hold Ren and carry him to their waiting ship. “Come on Ren, come on. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

“Don’t be afraid.” Ren whispers, suddenly. “Hux, I want… I need you to not--”

“I’m not.” Hux says, too harshly. “I’m not afraid, Ren. Now please just--”

“I can feel your heart beating.” He says, because he’s always been a fan of stating irrelevant idiotic facts. He opens his eyes, turning his head slightly. Even though he tries, he can’t seem to focus.

Hux’s heart is pounding in his chest, too fast. It’s not even exertion.

“That’s nice.” He says.

“I wonder if it’s ever beat for me.” Ren says, smiling. Sharp anxiety slices into Hux’s belly, feeling like a gutting all in its own. Ren doesn’t smile like that, not for him. Not for anyone.

“Don’t be a fool,” Hux says, throat burning. “It beats to keep me alive. As yours does.” Something presses him to add, “It doesn’t feel like it would be worth the effort to beat, without you.”

Ren makes a small noise, closes his eyes again. “An ocean, and an island. Luke Skywalker waits, he wants to train her. That’s where everything ends.”

“Everything ends? What are you babbling about now?” They’re so close to the ship he could see the stormtroopers standing guard, waiting. He holds Ren tighter, protectively.

“The girl. That’s where you kill the girl, and Skywalker.”

“Me?” Hux asks, surprised.

“You’re meant to rule,” Ren says, “Your ticket to that is killing her, and finishing the Resistance. You’ll be Emperor one day.”

Hux swallows hard around the ice wanting to form in his throat. “Ren, I--”

“It’s okay, Hux.” Ren says, pressing his face into Hux’s shoulder. Hux will never get the blood out, he’ll never get the sinking feeling out of his chest. “Like I said, you don’t need to be afraid.”

Hux closes his eyes. They’re close to the ship, if Ren would just hold out--

 _Stay with me._ He thinks hard, hoping Ren will hear it.

_I am always with you._

He’s still, so very still when Hux sets him down on a cot in the ship. He flings his glove aside as he peels it off of his hand, touching Ren’s neck and feeling for a pulse. He shifts it under his tunic, searching for a heartbeat under his shaking palm. Ren is so cold, even with the greatcoat over him.

“Ren.” Hux says, quietly.

Ren never responds.

 

He blinks once, twice, feeling tenseness in his jaw and pressure on his teeth from how hard he’s clenching them together. The scavenger girl is attempting to get up, on one hand and her knees with another on her chest. Not a kill shot then.

Close enough.

He takes aim again, ignoring the sickness in his stomach rising. He wants Ren there, wants him to do that stupid running skip before he twirls around with that lightsaber as if he commands death himself.

But Ren never got up from that cot, and he is alone.

A man is running for her, she reaches a hand out to him. The same traitor Stormtrooper that had caused him so much trouble, all that time ago. Good, he has witnesses to this. This Stormtrooper can share the misery of loss, can be plagued by it, as he has.

He takes the second shot, snarling as she falls to the ground again and lays there unmoving. FN-2187 yells, falls to his knees next to her. Clutches her close.

He hisses as he feels a crushing pressure on his chest, clutching him tightly and attempting to pin him. Skywalker, of course, Ren had warned him about that possibility.

At the thought he could almost see it: Ren’s pale face, partially obscured by blood, dark thick eyelashes fanned over the tops of pale cheekbone. That scar cutting across his face might have formed into something beautiful, something as deadly and wicked as the person who would have worn it.

He failed Ren, like he failed so many other things and there’s no coming back from it. His father had a point, when he’d said that Hux was doomed in that way. Hux had risen so far, but everything that he’d built had crumbled and faded away without him.

Beside that, it would have been impossible to stop Ren from going that day anyway. All of it would have happened again. All of it would still be lost. Ren was still lost to him, out of reach.

Twisting in the grip that holds him, he clutches his blaster-- tailored only to his hand, only for his use to kill-- and turns it away from him. Hux is not afraid, of anyone or anything. Especially not another magic-wielding mystical madman. He’d loved one, once. He knew how they operated, even if Ren was slightly unhinged.

The worst that could have happened to Hux has already happened. There is nothing that Skywalker can rip from him now.

He turns his head, black curling on the edges of his vision and pulls the trigger.

 

Hux does not believe in the afterlife. Had never believed it when Ren spoke of Force ghosts, and the void. It had only solidified after Ren had never come back to him from his last stand on Starkiller, as much as he hoped for a single foolish moment that he would.

So it doesn’t surprise him when Ren isn’t waiting for him when his eyes open, but Ren’s mother is.

“General,” she says, bodies in flames around them. Stormtroopers, all sorts of bodies in various degrees of being mangled, debris of all kinds of machines around them. A fight had commenced then, around them. It was likely that everyone had assumed him dead and moved on around him.

How comforting.

Skywalker was nowhere to be seen. They were all weak for not killing him when they had a chance.

Ren’s emotional ways must have come from the New Republic, probably.

“General.” He says, acidly. “Surprised you’re still holding on, after your husband and son both are far beyond your reach.”

She smiles, in a sad pinched sort of way. “My son is far beyond your reach too, General Hux. Don’t try to fool me.”

Her smile is almost the same as Ren’s. He doesn’t smile like that, not for him, not for anyone. Perhaps this is why, he feared that someone would see too much of her in him.

He and his mother both felt the need to point out the obvious.

_I’m not afraid, Ren. But I will need you._

No one answers him. He closes his eyes as he hears a click of her releasing something from her belt. A lightsaber, maybe? A blaster, meant to put him out of his misery? Like he’d ever go down without a fight. Like he’d ever let her end this nightmare that he has become.

Snoke would kill him anyway, for taking the girl’s life and enjoying his own revenge. He had nothing to go back to, and it made him dangerous. Vicious.

“Perhaps you’ll meet him again before I do.” He says as he lunges forward, teeth bared and nails digging into flesh.

 

He’d been wrong all along.

Ren may have been the most human between the two of them after all.

 

_Will you be waiting for me?_

No voice answers him.


End file.
